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The AI search landscape faces an ethical crisis as Perplexity.ai's newly announced partnership with Truth Social triggers widespread condemnation from technical users. The collaboration, described by Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko as bringing "powerful AI to an audience with important questions," has drawn scathing historical parallels from critics.

"While Perplexity is no 'IBM,' they’re doing the same thing IBM and other manufacturing/tech organizations did back when Germany was committing atrocities," warned the author of The Daily Drop, referencing IBM's controversial historical dealings. "They’re going to serve up a crap ton of misinformation, widening the already deep 'fact' divide in America."

This backlash has translated into immediate action within the tech community. The author announced cancellation of their Pro subscription, citing Perplexity's effective "empowerment of this modern American Nazi MAGA movement" as morally untenable. Technical users now face practical hurdles when leaving: Perplexity intentionally complicates bulk data export, displaying warnings about losing "all of your threads forever" upon cancellation.

However, developers are circulating technical countermeasures. A documented workaround reveals how to extract thread history using browser developer tools:

curl 'https://www.perplexity.ai/rest/thread/list_ask_threads?version=2.18&source=default' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{"limit":500,"ascending":false,"offset":0,"search_term":""}'

This method involves incrementing the offset parameter in POST requests to systematically retrieve all user data—a process Perplexity's UI deliberately obstructs. Alternatives include a Chrome extension for migrating threads to Notion, though many find its UX lacking.

The controversy strikes a personal chord for some long-term users. The author acknowledged Perplexity's utility during post-Long COVID cognitive challenges but noted sufficient alternatives now exist, including locally-run search solutions like searchxng and other commercial LLM providers. This ethical rupture underscores a growing tension in AI: as platforms pursue controversial monetization partnerships, they risk alienating their core technical user base who prioritize integrity over growth. The industry now watches whether Perplexity's gamble will trigger broader reckoning about AI's role in information ecosystems—and what lines developers refuse to cross.